Colors have their own natural weights. Yellow is a lighter weight color, while blue and red are heavier.
Looking at this chart created by Munsell, we can see how the weight of the color relates to values in a black to white value scale.
Yellow is a naturally lighter color, while blue and red are naturally darker.
The image at right gives you an idea of the color wheel converted to grayscale. This gives you an idea of the relative value, or weight of each color.
This is not a scientific study, it is just to give you an idea.
There is evidence that dark colors as well as yellows stand out more in our color vision. I will follow up more on this as I have time to delve into the scientific research.
Some questions for us to consider:
- Is there a difference between color weight and value?
- How do we make use of color weight in our work?
There is some related information on this topic in my book Color Movement Theory, and I am working on another book on pictorial space that will delve into other aspects of this topic.
Please contact me if there are aspects of color weights that you are interested in knowing more about.
